


Cold Pressing AU: Base Chapter.3

by Alex_Quine



Series: Cold Pressing AU [3]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mpreg, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 16:34:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2739392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex_Quine/pseuds/Alex_Quine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boromir returns to Minas Tirith seven years late and not alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Pressing AU: Base Chapter.3

The following morning, Boromir went early, when the street was still deserted, to the Houses of Healing and was greeted by Celond, who began the laborious process of removing the linen coverings on his torso. When the healer had him stripped, he spent some time examining the scars and wounds, murmuring instructions to his assistant.

“My lord,” he said, “many of these should heal quickly if we care for them well. Some we will begin with the oil now, whilst one or two will need the bandages for a while yet.” He looked at Boromir’s plain shirt and leather vest and smiled faintly. “I would wish you to leave off all rough clothing and go in silks, in loose robes that open in the front. We want as little rubbing against the skin as possible. You should not pick up heavy weights or stretch too far on that side, let the muscle rest somewhat and if we have some fine days I would wish you to go bare-chested, to let your skin take some warmth in the sunlight – but a still time, mind, no breeze to stir up dust or grit to work its way into the wounds. The chaff from the mill has worried at some of these places.”  
  
Boromir tried to imagine himself lounging in silk robes and grimaced. This felt too much like allowing himself to become weakened. Celond guessed his mood and added, “Once the wounds have knit firm, the scars become less angry, we will have you back in the practice ring stronger than you are now. As to the other places, we will continue with the bandaging for now. Have you taken more of the drops today?” Boromir nodded. “Good. From now on take the potion each night before you sleep and your waking will be free of pain.” And with that he left his assistant to complete Boromir’s treatment. The oil felt light and dry on his skin, after the months of sticky poulticing and when the assistant produced a plain silk overshirt he slipped it on and hardly felt its weight.  
  
Arin was still at his morning meal when Boromir returned, throwing down his shirt and vest on a chair. He sat beside the child, took some bread and reached for a pot of preserved quinces. A small gasp beside him told him that Arin had seen in the gaping front of his shirt, so he put down the jam and turned to his son. Arin was wide-eyed as Boromir opened the shirt fully and let him see the few remaining linen strips between red and angry scores. “Arin,” he said gently, “do you remember the Warg den?” The boy’s eyes grew large and he shivered. Boromir had not been sure how much he might have remembered from that day. “The Warg did this. Now we are in Minas Tirith, I have seen a Healer, who will help me conquer the hurt…but for now I will wear silk because it is soft.” Arin fingered the edge of the shirt and nodded. Then he turned back to his meal and Boromir heaved an inward sigh of relief and turned to his. ‘I must get him a dog – something small and quiet,’ thought Boromir.  
  
For lack of any other raiment he wore the overshirt up to the palace and was ushered into a small parlour where Aragorn and Arwen were sat, Aragorn balancing Eldarion who was stood upright on his father’s knees. Boromir was clutching the documents he had been due to discuss with the King and as he bowed was aware of his informal appearance. “Madam,” he smiled ruefully, “I am come from the Houses of Healing. They tell me we may yet heal some of the hurts of long ago and wish me to go in silks, but I have nothing presently to allow me to be seen in your presence as I would wish. I ask your pardon.” Arwen, who had had a glimpse of the angry weals on his breast, assured him that no forgiveness was necessary. Then she picked up Eldarion out of Aragorn’s lap and drifted from the room, leaving the two men alone.  
  
Aragorn motioned Boromir to sit beside him and as Boromir began to spread out the maps of the fortifications before them on the floor, he poured a cup of ale and set it at Boromir’s right hand, saying, “Is it well with you?” Boromir slowed in his movements but did not stop until he had laid out all the documents. Then he straightened up, met Aragorn’s eyes squarely and bravely, replying, “Aye, it is well.” And no more needed to be said.  
  
The two men talked through the morning, arguing cases, examining alternatives, until it came time for the noon meal, but before they could rise to go down to the dining hall, Arwen re-appeared in the doorway, carrying over her arm a robe of silk. “Here, Lord Boromir,” she said, “this may serve until you are better set. It is an old thing, but I hope you will accept the gift.”

Boromir stammered a reply as she motioned him to take the robe and to try it on, slipping off his shirt, whilst Aragorn sat, nodding approvingly, as the Queen pulled the soft folds into place. It was a dark wine silk, with embroidery around the collar, knee length, with long wide sleeves and there was a sash belt to gather it loosely, just below the waist. Touched by her kindness, Boromir found some further gruff words of thanks, then Arwen smiled and left them again and the men went down to the hall.  
  
Boromir felt that too many eyes lighted on him, dressed more richly than was his wont for even formal occasions and Beregond’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair at the sight of his finery. “A gift from the Queen,” said Aragorn blandly. Legolas’ eyes were narrowed, but he said nothing as they sat to eat and talk. However, eventually a disagreement arose about the relative merits of hawks over hounds for hunting game and as Boromir was accounted an authority on both and Legolas was being bested in the argument, he thought to shamefully undermine his opponent. When Boromir had made his point, Legolas threw up his hands gracefully.  
  
“Ai!” said the elf, “I bow to your Peredhel forefathers.”  
“What do you mean, Legolas?”  
“If I’m not mistaken…”  
“You’re not,” put in Aragorn.  
“…that is one of Elrond’s robes, or at least part of it. The full set is longer, with many layers, and very heavy, but the embroidery is unmistakable.” He smiled mischievously, enjoying Boromir’s consternation. “Would you like me to put the knots in your hair?”  


Boromir turned dry-mouthed to the King, who looked fixedly at his plate, trying not to grin, and murmured “Stop teasing him, Legolas. And you,” his smile for Boromir was both stern and loving, “would be well advised to continue to accept Arwen’s gifts with a good grace.”  
“It was an honour to receive such a gift,” Boromir scowled at Legolas, who laid his hand to his breast in submission and all was well again.  
  
Boromir returned to the house in time to greet Arin, come from school and realised that he had had almost an entire day free from pain. As he prepared to take some rest before dinner as instructed, his gaze lighted on the chest beside his bed. There were bolts of silk, cream, soft fawn, nutmeg, copper and a deep, midnight blue, spilling out of the open chest and pinned to the material a slip of parchment with the wax imprint “A”. Boromir stood for a moment, then he walked quietly to the door and barred it. Stripping off all his clothing, he gathered the mass of cool fabric into his arms and sank back onto the bed, rubbing his face back-and-forth across the slippery stuffs to soothe his aching heart until he finally fell asleep, swathed in a King’s ransom of silk.  
  
The following weeks proved a challenge to Boromir. Celond was exacting in his management of him, but there was no denying the way in which his body had responded to rest and kind treatment. The wounds on his torso were all of them dry, the weals less swollen and angry and some of the scars began to silver under the oils rubbed into his skin every day. Celond had a skilled masseur work on him to keep the tone and length in his muscles during this period of inactivity. On warm afternoons he went bare-chested in the walled garden of the house, sheltered from the winds, and had even permitted a wide hammock to be slung between two old trees, where he lay in the dappled shade and dozed.  
  
However, it had also been necessary to increase the dose of the chasteberry liquor. Celond wanted to calm the torn flesh in his groin, but not to heal it completely in its present place, and as his other hurts mended and his body began to thrum with health again, finding the right dosage had been a painful trial.  
  
Aragorn had come with him unasked on visits to the Healer, and whilst Boromir could have said him nay and faced down the wrath of his King if needs be, he knew that Aragorn’s proprietary air stemmed more from anxious concern than it did from any real sense of ownership. Each man was the prop for the other, but although they sought to conduct their meetings with careful distance, it seemed that the very knowledge of what they held back from heightened their awareness, until either man could feel his skin thrill at any time of the day and know that the other was close. 

Elsewhere his work on the estates was beginning to bear fruit and there was every hope that at the least all his people would have sound roofs over them before the seasons turned. There was winter grain being sown for the first time in many a year and flocks of sheep had been turned into the old orchards, their fences renewed, to eat down the grass between the trees and manure the ground, so that new plantings should thrive.  
  
Arin was beginning to behave more like the boys that Boromir remembered himself and Faramir as being. He had a small group of close friends amongst his schoolfellows and they roamed the palace grounds and upper levels of the city, getting into mischief, but never too far out of sight of the capable guard that Beregond had set to keep watch on them, who was sensible enough not to intervene even to the extent of muddy breeches and scraped knees, but was there to take swift and firm charge when they thought to climb up some builders’ scaffolding.  
  
Boromir had not forgotten his plan to find Arin a dog and thought they might choose a puppy from a litter born to one of Arwen’s lapdogs, but Arin forestalled this plan, returning from an expedition to a lower level of the city with a huge, half-starved mastiff that he was leading by the ear. The great beast came up to the boy’s shoulder and Boromir instinctively disliked the measuring look in its eyes, but it was covered in sores and what looked like the marks of a whip and Boromir’s heart went out to the suffering beast. Arin clung to his Adar’s hand pleading to keep his pet and Boromir could not refuse, although he determined that the dog would be bathed and would on no account share Arin’s room. It would sleep in the stables.  
  
As Arin led ‘Rullo’ away to find some food, Boromir beckoned forward the shadowing guard, stood in the doorway and demanded what he meant by allowing his son to acquire such a beast?

“It was more the dog acquiring him, my lord. They were a party of traders, Haradrim from the look of them, using the beast cruelly and the young master plunged in to snatch the whip before I could reach them. When they would have struck him, the dog turned on them.”

Boromir was silent and the man continued, “I’ve seen those Harad mastiffs before. You won’t find a more loyal beast, although he’s a poor sight right now.” Boromir rubbed his nose. “Probably better company for a small boy than a lapdog, but you,” he told the smiling guard, “are going to bathe it.”  
  
Locking Rullo in the stables proved a futile exercise as his howling could be heard across the city, so they had let him in and he’d settled in a top corridor, lying across the entrance to Arin’s room. Boromir had found him there when he went to check on his son and once they had measured eachother again, the dog gave a small thump of its tail in greeting. Boromir stretched down and scratched it gently behind the ears. The dog sniffed him and then went to knaw at a sore on its leg.

“No, you mustn’t do that…although I know the temptation. I wonder…” and Boromir fetched the oils that Celond had given him. He picked the mildest oil and rubbed some on the dog’s leg with gentle fingers. The dog seemed to accept this and lay flat, so Boromir carried on. “I’ll have them make you some balm of your own, against you be a stout friend to him for me,” whispered Boromir, little reckoning whether the Healers would consider their skills usefully employed on a dog.  
  
But now darker clouds came to hover over all they did. Aragorn judged it time to raise Boromir to the state that he felt the man deserved and to the place beside him that he wanted Boromir to occupy. Having consulted with Faramir, Aragorn announced that he wished him to take up the ancestral post of Steward to the King, currently held by his brother.

Aragorn knew that Boromir understood the honour being done to him and, indirectly, to the memory of his family’s centuries of honest service, but he was hardly prepared for the vehemence with which Boromir declined the position, nor the anger in his eyes at the suggestion. Time and again he asked, almost pleaded, and again and again Boromir refused, pacing the room with anxious strides.  
  
Aragorn struggled to keep his tongue in check, for to command him in this would be to trample over the fragile mesh of shared experience and mutual trust that enabled them to support their present understanding.  
  
“Why will you not do this? You have not given me any answer that I can understand. Your estates begin to right themselves. Your son is settled and seems content.”  
“There are others more fit.”  
“There are none that I can trust as I do you!”  
Silence filled the library with a heavy chill.  
“Are you angry that I made Faramir a Prince, seem to honour him more.”  
“No!”  
“Then what? None knows this place, none has striven for Gondor as you have done all your life – you have earned this…”  
“I have earned nothing!”  
His voice rang in the rafters.  
“We never speak of it, Aragorn! We never look into that place…and I had hoped that silence meant that you would allow me peace, to try to rebuild as a private man, to make amends to my family.”  
“This is foolishness…”  
“You would set me up in a place where men will look at my part in the Fellowship and will ask, what did he do? What did our noble Steward do?”  
Then, all caution cast aside, he was gripping Aragorn’s shoulders, green eyes boring into him with such intensity that for a moment the King feared for his mind.

“I betrayed you! I betrayed you all! From the first day my Father brought me here, it was my life’s purpose and I failed all who loved me, all whom I loved…” and Boromir slumped on his chest, voice dazed, “I should have died that day.” Shaken, Aragorn folded him in his arms, stroking his hair over and over, fearful of letting the man go in his present humour.  
  
They stood for minutes together and then Aragorn murmured into his ear, “If you had died, Arin would have been lost to the world.” And at that, Boromir’s body sagged and Aragorn guided him over to a bench. As they sat quiet, each with his own sorrows, Aragorn laid a hand on Boromir’s cheek, saying “I would not cause you pain, but there were more than our own hopes and desires at work in those dark times and sometimes it was not possible to see the steps laid down for us.” And Boromir never knew that he set the elf to watch over him in the following hours.  
  
It was some days later that, once again, they sat together, beside the pool in the courtyard garden in the fading light. The steady trickle of the water flowing into the stone basin was a calming balance to troubled thoughts. Celond had come to them that afternoon and explained to Boromir the various and carefully considered opinions of his colleagues. His own feeling was that he could free Boromir from the bondage to which he was currently condemned, but there would be a knife and fire, danger and great pain that he must endure waking. The Healers would be bound by his decision in this, but Boromir’s body had been readied and the cut, if desired, should be made soon.  
  
Boromir had oft times in the waking hours of the night considered how he might live the rest of his days beside Aragorn and forbear to touch him and knew that it would be an agony he could not endure unless he must. He had considered asking Celond to complete the job, to geld him. He would still be able to pleasure his lord in many ways, but this was not his decision alone and Aragorn would not agree to it, saying that if that was their fate, either of them, through accident or illness then they would face it together, but not seek it out - and then there was Arin. To lie under Celond’s knife for any reason risked the child’s future and Aragorn did not know how Boromir’s soul ached when he assured him that if anything should ever happen to him, Aragorn would stand his friend.  
  
Aragorn was truly fond of Arin, but Boromir concerned him mainly. The risk of his life was a heavy weight and Aragorn considered that for his love’s sake there were other burdens that should be laid aside at last, so in the garden by the pool, he took Boromir’s hands in his and told him he should go and visit Frodo.  
  
That Boromir did not immediately pull away told Aragorn that the thought had been with him too. He did not press for a response but watched Boromir through the following week, wrestling with his demons, until the day he came to him and asked Aragorn to look to the child, whilst he was away.  
  
Arin had never been apart from his father before and Arwen, on hearing of the trip, swooped down to take him into her care. He was too old for the nursery, so he would have his own room. This also separated Rullo from the lapdogs. Boromir loaded a pack-horse with Arwen’s gifts for the hobbits and he carried letters for them from Aragorn and Faramir.  
  
They gathered in the stable yard to see him go and at the last, Arin wept and clung to his father. Boromir had cradled him and whispered words of reassurance and when the boy’s grip lessened, he handed him to Aragorn, who felt a damp cheek rest on his neck. Boromir mounted and taking up the leading rein of the pack-horse, let his gaze sweep across the faces of the company with a grim smile. They cried him “Fair weather!” and “Safe journey and soon home!” and long after the little group had dispersed, Arwen and Legolas stood beside the White Tree and watched the solitary rider crossing the plains until he was lost even to their sight.

  
  
  
  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been edited from its first posting. It was originally written with two endings. The Cold Pressing AU emerges out of Pathway 1. The alternative ending/chapter is available for anyone interested at alex-quine.livejournal.com by going to the Profile page and linking to the Fic Index.


End file.
